Dangerous Situation

Photo by Howie Rosen

I have a concern about your April 2 cover photo. You might notify your grinning, overfed cover dude, along with the staging photographers, that bicycle-riding on a walkway is unlawful.

Two-hundred pounds of human on a 70-pound bicycle wheeling 15-20 miles per hour through runners, walkers, baby carriages, dogs on leashes, and other life forms is ... well, do the dangerous-situation math.

• Cristenson
• Center City

Eliminate Machismo

Regarding “Golf, Golfed, and Golfing” (Sporting Box), all you need to do is promote 12-hole golf courses, and the elimination of the driver.

No mention is made of the popularity of executive courses — nine holes — which I suspect are not at all hurting for players. Twelve holes shortens the time and the need for long drives, which would eliminate machismo for accuracy.

Also, if one would need to qualify to play a course by proving to have a decent swing, the game would move even faster. Two hours of golf would result. Now, make it so!

• Saul Harmon Gritz
• Hillcrest

Price per Milligram

Your article, "Give Me the Pills and Nobody Gets Hurt,” states, “On the street in San Diego, a five-milligram pill of oxycodone can go for as much as $20, according to users of the website streetrx.com. A more typical price for the area would be $5 for five milligrams, and in some parts of California, it can go as low as $1.”

A couple of paragraphs later you quote DEA spokeswoman Barbara Carreno: “The price of these drugs on the street has risen very high, to a dollar a milligram. You can pay $40 to $80 for a pill.”

So, how much is one milligram valued at on the street. $1, $4, $5, $40, $80?

• Name Withheld
• North Park

Preventative Police

This is in response to an article in the April 2 issue by Elizabeth Salaam (City Lights: “Give Me the Pills and Nobody Gets Hurt”). This is the second time I’ve had to call you people about the fact that your authors, such as this one, are using words that are not in the English language.

Would you please tell this woman that there’s no such word as preventative? There’s no such word. She may have been wishing to use the word preventive, but she did not. My wife and I are puzzled. Surely, you’ve got an English dictionary at hand, if not a spell-checker, if not Google.

It’s strange because this is the second time in three weeks that we’ve had to call this problem into you. Apparently you don’t have a copy editor who knows that preventative is not a word in the English language. They should be picking up things like that. You’re dumbing down the quality of your news articles. The veracity of the article is unreliable when you use words that aren’t in the language.

Please talk to Elizabeth Salaam, and then find a copy editor who reviews copy coming in to ensure that the word preventative is never used again.

• Name Withheld
• via voicemail

Doodle Bug Days

In your April 2 Blog Diego article there’s something about a motor scooter and people resenting the owners parking it where they want to park their cars.

It brings back memories of East St. Louis and Belleville, Illinois in the mid-1940s. A lot of 15- and 16-year-old boys had motor scooters, and they were all American made. Most of them were Cushman, and I think Cushmans cost about $250. The fancy motor scooter was Salisbury, which cost about $450. Then there was a cheap motor scooter called a Doodle Bug, which cost like $50-$75. I had one of those.

Modern-day Doodle Bug

My Doodle Bug had a very low-powered engine, not much more powerful than a lawn mower. If I wanted to go from East St. Louis to Belleville, there was a steep hill, and halfway up the hill I’d have to get off the Doodle Bug and walk it up the hill!

A couple of times I parked my Doodle Bug at a parking meter. The parking was a penny for 12 minutes and a nickel for an hour. I parked in the street, and put my penny in the meter. On two different occasions I came back to my Doodle Bug and found that some clown had knocked it over, either deliberately out of meanness, like the people in Blog Diego, or probably they didn’t see the motor scooter because it was such a little thing, and they had pulled into the parking space not seeing that my motor scooter was there.

After that happened two times, I started parking it up on the sidewalk rather than parking it on the street, and I never had any trouble after that, from the police or anyone else. And I didn’t have to pay anything to park it on the sidewalk!

• Name Withheld
• via voicemail

Far from Busted

We are writing in response to the article published by Ken Leighton entitled, “Ché Café sit-in is a Bust” (March 24).

We believe that the article misrepresents some facts of the current Ché situation. Leighton’s article calls the sit-in a “bust,” but in reality we’re still going strong, far from done and dusted (or busted, for that matter). The Ché has been continuously occupied since last Tuesday’s early-morning rally (March 24) brought together supporters of the Collective including students, alumni, community members, faculty, and staff.

The article draws much of its information from Jordan Krimston, who we have heard has since expressed regret to Collective members for some of the comments he made, and feels that some of the facts were misrepresented.

The overall tone of the article, and the premise on which the title’s cheap pun is based, is that protest is ineffective if it is not met by state violence. The article implies that if UCSD students are not assaulted and/or arrested that the protest is a failure. This is concerning in light of the sheriff’s recent quoted statement in the update to the story that they are prepared to evict by “any means necessary.”

Who would expect the sheriff to ironically and unintentionally quote Malcolm X’s 1964 speech? Historic murals of activists Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and Emma Goldman grace the outside of the Ché building. Perhaps this is the sheriff’s tribute to these great writers and activists? To coin a cheap counterpun in our dismay and amusement, “If it bleeds it ledes.”

We’re here. We’re unified in staying. We won’t be intimidated by police threats. No eviction (or bust).

• Supporters of the Ché Café

Sun Diego

As someone born and raised in Arizona, I spent my childhood summers escaping the Phoenix heat by heading to San Diego. I am now a sustainability student at Arizona State University, and I was recently impressed and inspired to see San Diego ranked highly in a recent solar cities report by Environment California, listing San Diego second in overall solar and fourth in solar per capita out of all major cities in the nation.

By spending so much time in San Diego and thinking of it as my second home, it was great to see the city recognized as a solar leader, which will reduce the emissions causing climate change and keep our air cleaner. I hope this helps to set a model example for other cities around the nation and hopefully my own home city, Phoenix, to continue to take advantage of this abundant and pollution-free resource to tackle our most pressing environmental problems.

• Nikole Bunger
• Phoenix, Arizona

Classy Not Clubby

Please put Classical Music in the Table of Contents! I have had a dickens of a time finding it.

Today the tiny Classical section is buried between This Week’s Shows and Upcoming Shows. Maybe it’s always between those two headings, but when there are only a few Classical events, they’re easy to miss. Patrons of classical concerts aren’t usually looking for their outings among pubs, clubs, and happy hours.

• MG
• North County

#TUTRULZ

Re: SD on the QT: “#TUTSUX: Local Teen Disappointed in Natural History Museum’s King Tut Exhibit”

This King Tut exhibit is outstanding! The large number of items, the excellence of their reproduction, the accompanying movie about the discovery, the display, and the explanatory, ambulatory audio were out of the ordinary, and very rewarding.

Knowing something about Egypt and the histories of the area, I found that this superb show expanded my appreciation and knowledge of the dynasties, the coexistent people in Egypt, and their slice of life. The artifacts were, in fact, better and easier to appreciate than the originals, which I had seen in the Cairo Museum about six years ago — they were all jumbled together at that time.

Don’t miss this show!

• Bill Pogue
• via email